


Posting a New Work

by HQ_Wingster



Series: Not Currently Working [1]
Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Author Commentary, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Inspired by Fanfiction, Satire, Stream of Consciousness, The Author Regrets Nothing, no regrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-13 17:05:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11764458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HQ_Wingster/pseuds/HQ_Wingster
Summary: The thoughts, trivias, warnings, and arguments that occur in one's mind when they post a new work onto AO3.





	Posting a New Work

**Author's Note:**

> These are the thoughts I have every time I post something new. Was quite funny seeing how this turned out. It's personal therapy.

**Joey:** Whether you were brushing your teeth, humming in the shower, or just finished killing a cockroach baby, an idea strikes your fancy. It’s a voice in your head, a tender whisper at first. Nudging you to try something different, something you’ve 99% thought about and never tried and 1% considered doing before you bailed out early. But this idea,  _ this one little nugget,  _ grows. Blossoms into this incermatible idea and you think it’ll work.

**Self-Worth:** After babying so many stories and watching them take their first steps, you feel a sense of pride. Watching your baby step into the world for the first time, and you want to cradle those first steps. However, you know to keep your distance, but you want this story idea to be in a nurturing environment with others who appreciate it just as much as you do. Carefully finding the plot-clothes to don onto the baby story, finding appropriate names that sale what you mean to convey, and you’ve carefully woven a thought-provoking summary to gather a reader’s interest.

**Blunt:** You click on “New Work” and bam! Tags. Your mind goes blank.

**Doubt:** You’re browsing through a fandom’s popular tags so that you can grab the stuff that people will notice.

**Blunt:** You’re playing with popularity because you’re insecure.

**Doubt:** How should you list your characters? The first ones up are most likely the main ones in the story, but should you pair the names together so it subconsciously alerts the reader of what ships you’re going to use? How many characters do you plan on using? You want to list them all, but you’ll anger the ones that are looking for a character, and you only made them as a cameo for two chapters.  _ If you’ll even get to two chapters. _

**Blunt:** Are you still stuck on the character tag?

**Doubt:** You’re afraid that you’re focusing too much on the popular characters. You want to use the background characters, but you don’t know much about them. You’re afraid of using them because you’re uncomfortable. You’ll anger the readers who actually care about them.

**Self-Worth:** Just because you’re not familiar with the characters, it doesn’t mean you can’t put your own twist on them. You are a writer, after all.

**Doubt:** For an original work, people wouldn’t care as much. But if you make a character into a cliche or a stereotype, people will hound you for it.

**Self-Worth:** The character won’t be a stereotype because you’ve already created a chart that showcases the character’s motives, intentions, personality, and their role in the fictional work.

**Doubt:** Who goes through the trouble to make that for a background character?

**Self-Worth:** Every character is equally loved.

**Blunt:** Sure, for two paragraphs and then they’re gone. Relationship tags. Go.

**Doubt:** You want to put down the popular tag because people will notice, but people won’t notice it because there’s so many works under the same tag. If you go rare-pair, only a small percentage of the reading population would ever find it. Leading to your self-destruction because you think people are uninterested with your work because it’s boring.

**Blunt:** It probably is.

**Self-Worth:** Going against the circle and trying new things builds diversity in a fandom. Shipping is not about fulfilling a personal fantasy or to “hook” individuals together. Shipping is when one is able to see love, in all of its different forms. There’s the erotic love, the familial love, friendship love, and love for someone who inspires you.

**Doubt:** Let’s get to the point. People just want to see their favorite characters bang and sex it up somewhere down the line.

**Self-Worth:** Actually, most of the population prefers works with emotional tension than the actual deed itself. Yes, having an  _ interesting fantasy  _ may appeal to a certain group, but emotional tension appeals to a much wider audience.

**Doubt:** Are you suggesting that M-rated and E-rated works don’t have emotional tension?

**Self-Worth:** I’m just saying that there are people who are uncomfortable with those ratings.

**Blunt:** What about fluff? Fluff is good anywhere.

**Self-Worth:** Exactly! Frankly, there’s too many backstabbing, murders, emotional tension, and other dastardly prompts in a fanfiction tag. To bring us back to reality and to see the finer points in life, fluff cleanses the soul.

**Doubt:** Didn’t you just say that emotional tension appeals to a wider audience?

**Self-Worth:** I believe that a writer has a choice to which audience they should appeal to, but if you want your work noticed, having a general rating is best.

**Blunt:** Those stories are pretty simple. What about for a complex story?

**Self-Worth:** You can still have a complex story that is G-rated. True, you will be confined to stricter guidelines, but it isn’t impossible to get it done.

**Joey:** I thought we were on the relationship tag. I guess we covered ratings as well. While on the topic, what about warnings?

**Doubt:** Should you spoil part of the story to keep your readers safe, or are you putting a high expectation on yourself? If you click on a warning, you got to deliver the goods. Ultra violence means ultra violence. Not wimpy violence or implied violence. But graphic, ultra violence. If you can’t deliver, don’t put it in.

**Self-Worth:** But if it’s your first time writing content like that, you still may want to tag it as such. What may be graphic to you, but not be graphic to someone else. And vice versa!

**Blunt:** If you put underage as your warning, I’m going to judge you.

**Self-Worth:** Judging a writer for what content they want to write or showcase builds a haughty persona to the individual who think so. Instead of judging each other for what we write, fanfic writers should support one another in their endeavor. Writing a story isn’t as easy as one might think and if an individual wants to tackle a difficult subject, they have my respect.

**Doubt:** What if the person who’s writing the story is an ignorant brick and they wrote some horrific stuff for a sadistic torture that’s just mind-screwing a character until they’re a shell of who they used to be in canon? Would you support that?

**Self-Worth:** There are individual likes that in a fandom, but you cannot automatically assume that about a person unless you’ve read the author notes, the writing itself, and have a somewhat acquaintanceship with said writer.

**Doubt:** That’s it, just say that no warnings apply to your story. Or better yet, choose not to apply one. The mystery is good. No fears, but you can still pull off something horrific for shock value, but people will remember you as such and they will shame all your future works.

**Self-Worth:** No matter what work you do, no one is going to shame you as the writer unless you’ve done something truly despicable.  _ End of argument. _

**Blunt:** Tags. Tags everywhere.

**Self-Worth:** You want to build your additional tags in a way that it conveys the story if the reader doesn’t have time to read it, and in a way that alerts to your reader of anything that they should know. Whether about the plot, the characters, or you want to tag your work to a collection or challenge that you’re participating in. Keep commenting tags to a minimum because it may deter some readers from your work. That’s why we have author’s notes~

**Doubt:** Should your additional tags be long or short? Short makes it easy to read, but it’s lacking. Long makes it extensive, and people will mentally shame you if your additional tags take three or more swipes to get past. No one wants to see a huge block of words.

**Blunt:** It’s a turn-off.

**Self-Worth:** Appropriate tagging leaves mystery behind the story. Remember that.

**Blunt:** If there isn’t a summary, people aren’t going to read your story.

**Self-Worth:** Summaries are like the previews to your works. Without, it’s much harder for people to check the story out, and it makes your work feel incomplete. Though summaries may be difficult, you can pull an excerpt from your work or give a general outline of what your work is about. And don’t be ashamed of your summaries. Each summary is unique and different from all others before it, so don’t feel ashamed of your hard work. Own your story and take pride in it.

**Blunt:** I’m mentally judging you if you put:  _ “not good at summaries but please read” _

**Doubt:** Uttering those lines into your summary gives us an insight to how squeamish you are about your own work. Any false-hopes that the story is better than the crappy statement or along the lines of  _ “i swear, this story is better than the summary suggests” _ is very much attention-seeking. If your own work cannot stand on its own and you have to give a lame statement like that, how can the reader be confident with your work work? When you, yourself, aren’t confident with it.

**Self-Worth:** If it’s your first work to a fandom or your first work in general, I feel it’s more appropriate to state it in your author’s notes. That way, your summary is just solely about the work itself than your personal thoughts on it. And like what I’ve always said, be confident with what you do. You’ve worked hard, and it’s time to reap the awards.

**Doubt:** Yeah, you can cry all you want in the author’s tags but nobody will read it. Keep it short so that people won’t have to scroll too much.

**Self-Worth:** You’re almost ready to post the work! This is so exciting. Are you gifting it? If so, I think the receivers will enjoy it very much.

**Doubt:** Unless it’s a WIP that never updates and you delete it one day and hope that the receiver doesn't notice.

**Self-Worth:** And even if you do for whatever reason, I think the receiver will be honored that you gifted them something. Even if was short-lived, giving is a beautiful thing.

**Blunt:** If it’s STDs, that’s not a good thing.

**Self-Worth:** Moving on! Will the work be a multi-chapter or a oneshot?

**Doubt:** Answer wisely. If it’s a oneshot, it better damn stay as a oneshot and not some cock-and-bull concoction that grows out of proportion. And if it’s a multi-chapter, it should progress from the first chapter. If it dies at chapter one, that’s just pitiable And you’ve joined the ranks of others who never update past chapter one.  _ Congrats _ . That’s just wonderful.

**Self-Worth:** You’ve copy and pasted your story into the writing section and now you’re ready to post! Isn’t this exciting? People from all over the world will take a glance at your story. At least the summary and tags before stumbling into the story, itself.

**Doubt:** And if you’re disappointed with how the publicity is going, just spam your work into the author’s notes of  _ other  _ works you’re working on. Spam it on those fanfic, tumblr accounts. Be anonymous. They won’t know it’s you.

**Blunt:** It’s shady. Just do it once and never do it again.

**Self-Worth:** But if you’re proud of your own work, you do want others to see it. Share it with different reading groups from other sites so that your story can be seen by many. Even if it’s a mention.

**Doubt:** Great...You want us to be blocked by others. That’s just great.

**Self-Worth:** You won’t get blocked if your intentions are clear and you know your boundaries.

**Joey:** Um, do we have any tips for these lovely folks?

**Blunt:** Search up “writing tips” on Google. There’s thousands of links.

**Self-Worth:** New works start off slow and that’s okay. As long as you’re having fun and enjoy what you’re doing, that’s what matters.

**Doubt:** If you keep author’s note as literal chapters and you can’t make up your mind whether you want to continue a work or not, spare your subscribers the details and just orphan the damn thing because you’re just annoying everybody with how fickle you are about continuing something that you already hate.

**Joey:** …

**Joey:** That feels very personal.

**Doubt:** Piss off, Joey.

**Self-Worth:** Rude! You will apologize to the fanfic writer right now. Good Heavens, this post is a mess. Joey, what are some tips that you can provide?

**Joey:** I’ve been setting myself a word count goal this summer. Daily chapter updates are 1k in word length. Oneshots are 3k or more. Weekly updates are 2k or more. I’m trying to stay away from long chapter updates because they burn me out, and I don’t think people can read a lot in one sitting because of life and other details.

Mainly, I just want to recover after burning through 20 new works that I’ve posted this summer. It’s been hectic, and I haven’t been able to fully recover. So at the moment, making a new story is a daunting task for me, may have something to do with my commitment issues. Both in real life and fanfic life, so I’m just trying to relax and have fun for once. Fanfiction is all about fun. People don’t write it as a job, but people write it to express their joy in a fandom. So, personal happiness is a big factor in writing fanfiction. You’re expressing your love to a fandom, so it shouldn’t feel like a job.

If it does, take a break. Relax. Type random stuff. It’s fun~


End file.
